Part Four: The Truth Revealed - What Jesus Really Taught

By Glyn Thomas

Does the church teach Jesus message accurately? If not, how can we find what Jesus originally taught? Tough questions, to which careful research provides revealing answers.

Many know of terrible excesses committed by the Church using quasi military forces to carry out numerous purges over many centuries. Estimates of those prof

• Language: English
• Publisher: Truth Publications
• Release date: Aug 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9789887448990

Glyn Thomas

Glyn was fascinated by ancient history from an early age - how civilization developed, how life on earth developed, how our planet was terraformed and how the universe evolved. During a career working mainly in senior financial roles for large multinationals, the combined impact of dealing with corporate correspondence and keeping abreast of professional material precluded any opportunity to read for pleasure. Upon retirement in 2013, Glyn was able to immerse himself in the disciplines that beckoned - astronomy, archaeology and ancient history. To his astonishment and delight, our knowledge of these subjects has been utterly transformed over the period of his working life. Glyn has an unusual outlook on life, from a childhood awareness of immortality his quest has been to understand. Brought up as a Christian, he found the biblical record challenging to believe. Glyn has frequent dialogue with many religious friends but none are able to provide credible explanations for his many questions. More fundamental Christians seem to view 'science' as an adversary, unaware that religion originated as science and politics - early priests were astronomers and civil servants. Protestants widely proclaim their belief in the bible as being God's Word without knowing or questioning why for most of the Christian era, the church prohibited laity from reading it. Study of the bible reveals numerous factual errors and inconsistencies. Surely, if one adopts the bible as the foundation of one's belief in eternity and personal salvation - it needs to be a lot more reliable. Furthermore, theologians and biblical academics are fully aware of many changes to the texts made to reinforce dubious aspects of dogma - yet no priest or pastor would ever share their knowledge with their congregation. So, Glyn set about finding the Truth, what was Jesus original teaching? Glyn found his journey of discovery incredibly uplifting. Reassuringly, despite the selective screening of books included in the New Testament and the extensive editing of those which were admitted - echos of the original truth may be found in many places. This quest led not only to the discovery of Jesus original teaching but the need for substantial revision to the conventional view of ancient history and our earliest civilizations. A hugely rewarding result that the author wishes to share with others - hence this series of little books. This the author was moved to write and share his findings. As was said "Seek and ye shall find."

Book preview

1

Introduction

1.1 So, my friends, now you arrive at the final destination – at least so far as my modest opus of musings is concerned.

1.2 We, as humans, all live in our own skin. Sadly, most of us seem to despair of ever finding out the truth – are we just an accident of biochemical reactions? Or, are we something more?

1.3 I never felt despair but a sense of purpose, that despite the enormity of the questions – the answers lay there for us to fathom out. To my great surprise, over the past decade, my very fundamental questions have generally been answered, and answered in ways I have found profoundly surprising.

1.4 Let me place a marker ahead of writing this last part of my Quintology. I can honestly say, that from my earliest recollections, I have felt utterly convinced that our spirit is immortal – either that our spirit is newly born with us and continues to exist (at least until the end of our universe, which has been estimated at some 36 billion years from now), or our spirit was pre-existing and continues to exist until the end of our universe. Such belief, I confess, was originally utterly devoid of any foundation, but now my belief finds a measure of conviction from what I have learned.

1.5 Those who have persevered in reading the preceding four books will sympathise with my tortured struggle to reconcile the current extent of our multi-disciplinary knowledge with our conventional understanding of history and Christian beliefs. The previous booklets in this series have demonstrated our current understanding of history is different in some major respects from that conventionally taught in our schools, whilst the beliefs of conventional Christianity have been ruthlessly distorted from those originally taught by Jesus.

1.6 This series started with an eye-opener to acquaint readers with a more accurate view of the sweep of history, subsequent parts have challenged both the accuracy and the relevance of the Old Testament of the Bible and challenged the integrity of the gospels and epistles comprising the New Testament.

1.7 Those readers who have struggled through my feeble writings will now doubt whether the Old Testament is talking about a single supernatural Creator, aka God, or about a number of what are conventionally termed ‘pagan’ gods. In reality, all of the gods referred to in the Old Testament, including El Elyon (translated to English as the Lord Most High or God Almighty) and Yahweh, were more likely to have been an extended family of elite, intelligent, advanced humans who managed to perpetuate their leadership over many generations.

1.8 Part Three looked at how the Gospels seem to have been embroidered to market a popular vision of Jesus to non-Jews and how the Roman authorities took control and developed Christianity for purely political purposes.

1.9 This final part of the series provides the stunning conclusion – hopefully providing the reader with insight into the underlying Truth which many forces have tried successfully to keep hidden. I promise, you will be stunned to learn the real Truth.

1.10 We will proceed methodically, of course! We start by looking at the better-known aspects of the early development of Christianity within the Roman Empire. We will trace the persecutions, the development of dogma through Church Councils and the compromise reached with Emperor Constantine that in a few generations led to Christianity becoming the state religion across the Empire.

1.11 If you believe you are a Christian then you really need to understand the history of the Catholic Church and the origin of its teaching and, at least assess, whether elements of your belief actually originate from Jesus, or from the church. Where beliefs may be shown as formulated only by the church, it is interesting to learn the origin and basis of such beliefs.

1.12 Let’s examine the ‘Dark Ages of Christianity, the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries, say AD100 to AD300. The radical new teaching of Jesus, see chapter 15 , appears to have spread rapidly and widely – spearheaded by the original disciples. Outside the Roman Empire, the teachings of the original Nazarene church spread east as far as India and westwards around the fringes of the Empire – across North Africa and northwards along the Atlantic coast to Ireland and Britain. Within the Roman Empire a different version of the gospel was spread, led by Paul.

1.13 The church readily admits theological debates raged over these early centuries but categorises anything disagreeing with the later establishment of Catholic dogma as heretical. After reading this book, you may conclude that the terms should be reversed! Evidence from Christian sources is sadly lacking, the Roman church managed to destroy almost all copies of almost all texts known to have circulated during the first three centuries after Jesus. Only a few caches of early texts have been recovered in the past century – which are discussed in the following chapters. The earliest substantive collections of surviving canon date back only to early 4 th century.

1.14 Almost no attention is given to the religious scene into which Christianity advanced. We tend to think of Roman citizens worshipping a range of pagan gods – all of which were swept away by the new religion. Predictably, this is not quite true. Long before the rise of Rome, the original family of ‘gods’ held in esteem by people of both the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures had been assimilated by all successive cultures in the Middle East. Whilst the Sumerian civilisation collapsed soon after 2000BC, the Egyptian theology continued to permeate each new empire, including the Greek and later the Roman. The major deities across the Roman Empire were Isis, collecting additional names including Aphrodite and Venus, her husband Osiris and her son Horus.

1.15 As we saw in Part Three, chapter 23:16-41, those who authored the canonised gospels seem to have assimilated many elements of the beliefs of Isis and her babe Horus – weaving these stories into the birth narrative, some of the miracles and the idea of the bodily resurrection when narrating the life of Jesus.

1.16 Then we shall look at evidence of how the Roman Church further embellished dogma and ruthlessly rooted out anything that contradicted its rulings – labelling such aberrations as heresies and its practitioners as Gnostics. As usual, the victors wrote the history of these events – but increasing evidence has appeared that enables us to retrieve the suppressed truths.

1.17 We look at how the Roman Church persecuted those who believed that they were sincere Christians, and consider what it was that the Church was so frightened of. We shall review the heresies and assess whether they were indeed heretical or just inconvenient for the Church. In this light we shall look at the evidence of how many of the 1 st Century texts were destroyed and how those adopted as canon were altered over the centuries to conform with the dogma that was being developed.

1.18 Then we shall examine the evidence of the original beliefs taught by Jesus and see why the politicians and bureaucrats suppressed it. Surprisingly, there appears to be sufficient evidence to support the conclusions reached – but you the reader will be your own arbiter. One benefit from reading this series is that you will be able to detect new meanings in many biblical passages – revealing the original message. I hope you find the journey enthralling and illuminating.

2

Why I came to focus on what

the Church deemed heretical

2.1 Few Christians are aware of the traumatic events of the 4 th and 5 th centuries when Church Councils hotly debated profound articles of faith. Today, these key issues sound almost absurd:- was Jesus a man who became God, God who became a man, a junior god or was Jesus a manifestation of God? Did Jesus have a real body of flesh and bones or was he an apparition? Was Jesus really conceived, grown to term in Mary’s womb or just pass through Mary as water passes through a pipe and thereby contain nothing of her substance? Today, summarising what has been examined in earlier Parts of this series, it is generally assumed that Jesus was conceived miraculously, born of a virgin and manifest as part of the Godhead. The New Testament presented by both Catholics and Protestants is dominated by the four canonical Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. Church teaching generally implies the Gospels were written by eponymous apostles who accompanied Jesus during his ministry – so what could be more authentic. Paul is represented as the legalistic and consummate interpreter and author of a coherent Christian dogma. Both assumptions are far from the original truth.

2.2 How can I, a relative nobody, make such outrageous claims? Firstly, just examine the official Catholic pronouncements – that none of the Gospels were written until well after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD70 – some 37 years after Jesus crucifixion – surely, given the extreme significance of the material, this is an astonishingly long time after the event?

2.3 Hold that thought – why do we not have writings contemporary with Jesus life? Luke (1:1-2) refers to the fact that ‘ many have written about these events ’ and ‘ these were handed down to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of Jesus ’ – immediately one realises that Luke was neither an eyewitness nor a contemporary but feels knowledgeable from the large number of texts by those who had been contemporary with Jesus teaching. Furthermore, where are all these writings – those that were available to Luke? The main reason for the absence of any contemporary texts is the extremely effective campaign of the Roman Church to destroy all copies of any text that challenged their own interpretation. Most Christians are aware of ‘heretical’ beliefs, beliefs challenging early Church dogma which gradually ‘faded out’. ‘Gradually’ is an understatement – examination of history shows a 1500 year campaign of unrelenting censorship and destruction backed by terror and extermination.

2.4 The inescapable conclusion from the previous paragraph is that ALL the numerous texts that Luke refers to were later judged to be heretical at some point in the 2 nd to 4 th centuries. So, statements in these earliest authentic texts that Luke did not include (for reasons unknown) must have included material that was later found to contradict doctrine developed centuries later – and pose a sufficiently credible threat to the Roman church’s dogma to warrant the huge effort to eradicate all copies of such documents, killing many Christians in the process.

2.5 Historians have estimated that during the two years following the Council of Nicaea in 325 more Christians were martyred on the orders of Church authorities, because they possessed a copy of a proscribed text, than during the three centuries between the crucifixion and the Council of Nicaea by the Roman secular authorities (see 11.4 below). This is surely very shocking.

2.6 The pursuit, trial and murder of ‘heretics’ continued in the centuries after Nicaea in 325, it became institutionalised with the formation of the Inquisition in 1250 and greatly expanded to pursue the wanton murder of the various groups, including the Cathars in southern France. The Inquisition then further expanded to cover the huge Spanish and Portuguese empires becoming a ruthless instrument of suppression until finally reined in by changes implemented as recently as 1908. The extensive repression of individual beliefs perpetrated by the Catholic Church over more than 1500 years is more Orwellian than anything achieved by the Nazis or any Communist Party.

2.7 The sheer extent and duration of the persecution should make one ponder – why would ‘heretical’ beliefs endure? Why did so many followers of Jesus choose excruciating deaths rather than submit to the dogma of the Catholic Church?

2.8 The Catholic Church did an amazingly thorough job of censoring texts and eradicating all that they deemed heretical – to such an extent that almost no such texts survived. When the Nag Hammadi cache, discovered in 1945, was examined – scholars were astonished to find that the overwhelming majority of the 52 texts were completely unknown – not only had all copies been destroyed but even all references to such works had been obliterated.

2.9 Why did the Catholic Church devote such huge resources to the task of eradicating all references to texts that it deemed heretical. What made it so important? What were they so afraid of ? Most Christians understand the great schism between Catholic and Protestantism arose because of concern at the rampant unpunished sinful behaviour of priests and the extreme commercialism of the church. Already extremely wealthy, by the Middle Ages, the church sought every opportunity to sell the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life – for gold, silver and land.

2.10 However, abuses can be remedied by reform and acceptable standards established, the more fundamental issue was brought about by the invention of printing press and the subsequent availability of bibles in the vernacular. The Catholic church had sought to prevent reading of the bible by laity unless carefully supervised by clergy, and strictly forbid translations into other languages from the Latin Vulgate. When ordinary people starting reading the bible in their own language they were surprised to find no supporting evidence for most Catholic dogma. The Catholic pope’s authority and the requirements placed on the congregation were found to be man-made. Hence the key Protestant mantra became sola scriptura – only scripture – with articles of faith based only on biblical evidence.

2.11 Unfortunately, the Catholic attempt to prevent the population reading the bible resulted in great jubilation and uncritical acceptance of the bible once it became accessible to the masses.

2.12 However, a moments’ thought should make Protestants wary of accepting the bible as being an accurate record. The contents of the Bible were gradually accepted as canon during the 3 rd and 4 th centuries. Whilst we have evidence, including in the bible itself, that numerous texts were written by Jesus disciples and contemporary eyewitnesses – and evidence that many of these were used by churches in the first two centuries after Jesus, the vast majority were systematically destroyed by the church. The collection of books which the Roman church eventually decided were suitable to be accepted as canon, principally the version known as the Vulgate, was ruled accessible only by ordained clergy.

2.13 The books of the Old Testament can be compared with the Jewish Masoretic texts dating from cAD650 to cAD1000 as currently authoritative in Judaism, or with the older Septuagint versions known to contain dubious translations into Greek. However, a number of variations arise between the Masoretic texts and those recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls – written c300BC to AD60. Moreover, textual research (as reviewed in Parts 2 and 3 of this series) has identified numerous errors of facts and plentiful anachronisms – indicating much later authorship than claimed and extensive subsequent editing prior to canonisation (i.e. when the text was locked) only in the few hundred years before Jesus. According to Jewish sources, a number of books in the Old Testament were only canonised a few centuries after Jesus.

2.14 More concerning, certainly for the author who does not see much connection between the Old Testament and his faith, is the fact that our versions of the New Testament books have come down to us only via the Catholic Church. Whilst numerous changes and additions have been identified, how can we be sure that important facts and statements by Jesus have not been edited out in attempts to conform the evidence to the adopted creed. Certainly, it is now widely accepted that the only two references in the bible to the idea of a ‘Trinity’ are now known to have been added centuries later – evidence indicates that the text of Matthew 28:19 was changed around AD300 whilst the text of 1 John 5 is only found in a trinitarian form after around AD1200 – evidence the church was actively changing texts for around at least a 1000 years – see chapter 20 of Part Three. Apart from changes which were trying to underpin the dogma of there being a Trinity, what else was being changed?

2.15 When we read the books of the New Testament, we assume that there was an early Greek text which was believed to be the original text or an accurate copy of it. Whilst we understand that numerous translations have been published, for example in English, these all represent attempts to accurately reproduce the meaning of the original Greek text. However, this assumption is far from the truth. When looking at the early Greek manuscripts, we find there exist thousands of variants of every book in the New Testament.

2.16 When comparing these variations, we see numerous examples of scribal edits deliberately changing the text to promote dogma or remove phrases supportive of ideas that had been declared heretical. One near universal trend seen progressively appearing in manuscripts from the first millennium, is the accumulation of titles wherever Jesus is mentioned. This may in part have been to show respect but it also played to underscore dogma. Where the oldest manuscripts refer to ‘Jesus’, latter manuscripts were written as ‘Jesus Christ’ to underline he was Messiah (by those who only understood Jesus was the messiah rather than a messiah), then ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God’ to reinforce Jesus was born of God, sometimes rewriting Jesus own frequent claim he was a Son of Man (see chapter 15 ) and the fullest expression as ‘our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’ to emphasize the Trinitarian claim that Jesus was both Lord, i.e. God himself, as well as the Son of God. The arguments over Christology, whether Jesus was both human and divine simultaneously, or a man temporarily cohabited by God, etc., were so complex and contradictory that some edits made to defeat one argument had the effect of supporting another. Mark 1:1 is one example of the progressive expansion, from "Jesus’ in the oldest manuscripts, then expanded to ‘Jesus Christ’ and later to ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God’ in successively younger manuscripts, there are numerous other examples.

2.17 I had personally assumed that the epistles written by Paul that I read in my bible must be based upon authentic Greek originals. But it appears that this is not correct – the source used for biblical canon is derived from collections of Paul’s letters assembled in the 3 rd and 4 th centuries. No two collections contain identical versions of each letter, none contain the same selection of letters. There is some debate over whether Timothy and Titus were even written by Paul. Galatians is generally believed to be formed from merging separate letters Paul sent to each church in Galatia into an illustrative letter. Our text of 2 Corinthians is believed to be derived from at least two separate letters – chapters 1 to 9 being one letter and chapters 10 to 13 forming a separate letter. Some argue that textual analysis indicates that the 2nd epistle to the Corinthians actually comprises elements of five separate letters that were merged into a single epistle.

2.18 Those that promote biblical inerrancy, that the everything stated in the bible is the ‘Word of God’ and therefore must be correct, are very well aware of the issues raised by widespread scribal editing. The Inerrants emphasize that the original divinely inspired text written by the author, the ‘original autograph’, is the inerrant text not later variants that have been subject to human editing. This leads to some interesting conclusions. For example, whilst we do not have any original autographs of any book in the New Testament text (and certainly no original text of the Old Testament books), all the evidence indicates that none of the authors of any text referred to Jesus as ‘the Son of God’. It would be helpful if a recognized authority amongst the Inerrantist academics admitted that the idea the Jesus is the Son of God is purely a man-made assertion – never once divinely inspired to appear as the Word of God.

2.19 The majority of textual variants are either insignificant or obvious scribal errors, often where a word is repeated in close proximity, the copyist’s eye being deceived into repeating a line or omitting a line. The fact that the vast majority of variants are of no consequence is obviously the focus of apologists who seek to dismiss the existence of variants as unimportant. However, there remain hundreds of variations which point to the arguments raging over dogma in the early centuries. These are rather more serious because they can have a direct bearing upon issues that all Christians regard as fundamental – such as: is Jesus actually God? Is Jesus the Son of God? Was Jesus resurrected?

2.20 It is widely accepted, and noted in most versions of the bible, that a series of verses were added later to the gospels of John (7:53 to 8:11, the story of the woman caught in adultery) and most of the coverage of the resurrection in John (chapters 20 and 21) and Mark (16:9-20, the ending which discusses Jesus appearance after his resurrection). The story of the woman caught in adultery sounds like an example of Jesus teaching but does not appear in any of the synoptic gospels. This section appears in whole or part in 1495 Greek manuscripts but is absent in 267 Greek manuscripts – which include all the earliest and those considered most important. It’s a great story of how Jesus deflected an attack upon himself, shamed the scheming Pharisees and saved a woman from an awful death in the process. Whether true or not has little bearing on our beliefs. However, the extended endings of John and Mark and are fundamental to Christian belief for they add detailed descriptions of Jesus post resurrection appearances. The two earliest known examples of Mark end at verse 8, with Jesus tomb being found empty and a declaration that his resurrection was foretold. Moreover, these two are regarded as highly authoritative: the Codex Vaticanus dated c325 to 350 and the Codex Sinaiticus dated c330 to 360. That the extra text appears to have been added during the second half of the 4th Century is highly significant – as this period was rife with arguments over all the fundamental aspects of dogma. There seem to be two basic reasons why scribes would decide on such a fundamental addition – it may have been to ‘conform’ Mark with the other canonized gospels or to support the promotion of bodily resurrection. The authenticity of the last two chapters of John is further undermined by their absence from official Catholic bible commentary on John.

2.21 Thus, without the research resources we enjoy today, one can understand why the leaders of the Protestant Reformation believed by focusing on sola scriptura they avoided the fake dogma embroidered by the Roman church. However, it is now clear that key elements of faith embraced by Protestants are also inventions of the early church – including the miraculous birth, the resurrection and the trinity. None would see these as ‘minor’ articles of faith. But, we may take comfort that the transformational stuff lies in the teaching of Jesus not his ‘life story’.

2.22 Protestants, with few exceptions, accepted the Catholic view of heresy – that the heretics had adopted unacceptable beliefs and whilst the Catholic forces had been brutal in eradicating such misguided ideas, such ideas had indeed been heretical and represented false teaching. Given the inappropriate behaviour of the priests and their lust for power and wealth – it does seem a little surprising that no one seems to have really challenged the Catholic Church’s standpoint on heresies – no one seems to have revisited the beliefs that had been branded as heretical to assess whether such classification had been justified. Early heretical beliefs are nowadays often labelled ‘gnostic’ a term used derogatively by theologians. The later heresies, such as belief that the Earth was not flat and that the sun did not orbit the Earth, are so obviously absurd that these are seen as justification for Protestantism and breaking with Rome. On this basis, it is surely surprising that older heresies have not been similarly re-examined.

2.23 Once you start to research the oldest heresies, and understand the heretical texts rediscovered in the past 100 years – the answers become clear. One is led to conclude that far from being heretical, heresies generally seem more likely to represent the Truth than do orthodox beliefs. I have come to realise that Catholic definitions of what is heretical actually provide the clearest avenue of thought to really understanding exactly what Jesus actually taught. One is on fairly safe ground to assert that actually – Heresy is Truth. Truly Orwellian, I know!!

2.24 But, in case you are now choking, just bear with me – the Truth will set you Free!!

2.25 Nowadays most people know nothing of the beliefs of the ‘heretics’ – just that they were rounded up, summary ‘justice’ dispensed – usually based on random unsupported allegations, a guilty verdict announced, supplemented by ecclesiastic seizure of any wealth held, followed by death – usually by burning at a stake. Two issues stand out – firstly, it seems there are very few records of anyone recanting their beliefs – even if only to be saved from a horrendous death; secondly, what were these heretical beliefs and why did such beliefs warrant such barbaric cruelty?

3

Early Christian texts declared heretical by Rome

3.1 According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1914 there were some 50 texts that were rejected for inclusion in the New Testament. Many additional titles have been added since this Encyclopaedia was last updated. My own research has identified credible references to no less than 117 gospels and other works used by early Christian congregations. The vast majority of these were declared heretical by Ecclesiastical Council’s during the 4 th century, starting with Nicaea in AD325 – which also ruled that all copies of banned books should be surrendered and burned by Church authorities. This Council, presided over by Roman Emperor Constantine, decreed that anyone found harbouring a banned book was to be killed – two historians have independently estimated more Christians were killed enforcing this Edict than the cumulative total killed by the Roman authorities over the previous 300 years (this is examined in detail in chapter 11 below). Constantine was not the Christian emperor that conventional portrayal suggests but was more interested in subsuming the growing power of Christianity into his preferred religion, Sol Invictus. He chaired the Council and his deputy ensured Christian dogma was effectively merged with the beliefs of Sol Invictus – covered in detail in Part Three of this series.

3.2 The Roman church did an amazingly thorough job of finding and destroying texts which were declared heretical. In 1904 Adolf Harnack identified 16 gospels, marked (+) in section 3.6 below, in his Chronologie that had survived at least in fragmentary form. The Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1914 listed 30 texts, marked (*) below, as having, at that time, no surviving texts even in fragmentary form.

3.3 The sheer scale of the Church destruction of early Christian texts was revealed by the Nag Hammadi cache discovered in 1945 in Egypt. This carefully hidden cache included 51 texts of which only 9 were previously known and two of these we had only the names of – there being no known, even partial, surviving texts. The two titles, already known of from the Catholic Encyclopaedia, which Nag Hammadi yielded complete copies of were the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth. The contents of the 13 codex discovered at Nag Hammadi included no less than 42 early Christian scriptures that we had never even heard of – titles which appeared in no lists, no correspondence and no surviving document of any kind. The texts recovered from Nag Hammadi are marked (#) in the list in section 3.6 below.

3.4 The importance of the Nag Hammadi cache may be judged from the fact that it is believed to have been buried in 325 when Bishop Athanasius returned to Alexandria, triumphant from Nicaea, and then enthusiastically set about rooting out heretics harbouring banned books. Therefore, the cache comprises manuscripts likely to have been copies written mainly during the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries – the earliest texts and certainly the oldest almost complete texts about Jesus that we have. The oldest complete texts of any canonised New Testament books are from the early 4 th century – the Codex Vaticanus (written between 300 and 325) and the Codex Sinaiticus (written between 330 and 360). Around a dozen fragments of canonical works have been dated to the 3 rd century – but most are very short. Given the rampant textual variations found in the Greek manuscripts, invariably by scribes trying to earnestly improve the reading, it is likely that the oldest texts from Nag Hammadi present the least corrupted versions of Jesus teaching.

3.5 Other early Christian texts we only know from references made to them in other surviving documents. No texts have survived even in fragmentary form that we can say were part of these documents. Given the experience of Nag Hammadi, it is more likely that there are many, many, other texts, some written in the first century by those who may have heard Jesus teaching first hand, which we may never recover copies of. These include the many eyewitness accounts of Jesus ministry used by Luke and referred to in the opening verses of his gospel – none of these seem to have survived.

3.6 Below are listed the titles of all the non-canonical texts that have been recovered in whole or part, or which have been quoted or criticised as heretical by early theologians. To enable ease of navigation, I have sorted the titles by reference to the alphabetical listing of the attributed authors and tried to group the texts into categories reflecting different types of works: Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, Apocryphon (secret writings and treatises) and Revelations (mainly apocalypses):

Gospels

1(#) The Gospel of Andrew

believed to be early 3rd century, quoted by Pope Innocent I and by Augustine, discovery in Nag Hammadi confirmed this was not another title for the Acts of Andrew

2(+#) The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles

until Nag Hammadi, known only from a reference by Origen in his Homilies on Luke, and a fragment in Syriac. Tells of Jesus life from conception to ascension

3 The Gospel of Barnabas

quoted by Gelasius I, Pope 492-496 in Decretum Gelasianum

4 The Gospel of Bartholomew

quoted by Pope Gelasius I in Decretum Gelasianum and others

5(+) The Gospel of Basilides

quoted by Origen

6 The Gospel of Cerinthus

Cerinthus wrote c100, quoted by Irenaeus, describes Earth as formed by divine angels subordinate to the Creator God, the Jewish god as also being an angel and Jesus as born of two human parents but, because very righteous, being granted extra Spirit at his baptism. Some references by 4th century Epiphanius are taken as giving this work the name Gospel of Merinthus

7 The Gospel of the Ebionites

not even a fragment of text survives, only 8 quotations by Epiphanius in his work Panarion, ‘voice at baptism, today you are born as my Son’. The Ebionites were Nazarene Christians who fled around the Mediterranean in face of Roman forces bent upon the eradication of Jews from Judah

8(+) The Gospel According to the Egyptians

believed to be used by Gentile Christians in Egypt, only quotations survive – six by Clement of Alexandria, overlaps with Mark and Gospel of Thomas

9 The Gospel of the Encratites

a sect quoted by Irenaeus (130-202), Clement of Rome and Hippolytus who described them abstaining from meat and wine, they are forbidden to marry – despite which, sufficient numbers endured for Emperor Theodosius to issue an Edict in 382 declaring the death sentence for all followers

10(*#) The Holy Book of the